WELCOME
to my 'plog'

It was no wonder we struggled to book accommodation in Kildare in late May. The 23rd and 24th May were the dates of the Tattersall's Irish Guineas Weekend held at the Curragh Racecourse just out of Kildare. Busloads of smartly dressed young punters were set down in the Market Square elevating the noise levels as they filled up all the outside tables at the pubs around the Square. An extra contributing factor was the three day Irish heatwave that began on the Saturday. With t

The coast of Pembrokeshire in South West Wales is a wild and rocky place. It seemed fitting that a storm rolled in bringing lashing rain while I was standing above St. Non's Bay where she gave birth to David in the midst of a much more violent storm around 500 CE. The legends record that she gripped the standing stone she was labouring against so hard that she left her hand prints there. It was also said that although thunder and lightning raged around her, the place where N

(Poem begun on the bus from Fionnphort to Craignure on May 20th) I'm leaving Iona again will I return? God alone knows. As the bus traverses the Isle of Mull The mountains are mourning with me weeping silver threads of tears. The rain packed clouds thicken the sky and misty wisps cover the highest peaks. It takes a long time to leave Iona and it's larger Island neighbour, Perhap's that's part of its power. you really have to want to come. Because it takes 9 hours with good c

For over 1500 years the site on which the present St. Illtud's church stands has been a place of Christian learning, shared community life, prayer and hospitality. I only learned about St. Illtud when I started exploring the Celtic Saints of Wales earlier this year. Illtud went from being a soldier to a hermit, to the founder of the earliest centre of Christian learning in Britian in around 490 AD. It had over 1000 students at its peak, including Saints David, Samson and Gil

I arrived in Wales on Monday morning after our group pilgrimage farewell dinner in Chester. We had a wonderful but very busy time in Ireland and I promise to fill you in on the details over the next few days. However I have had such an amazing time discovering some of the Welsh saints we encountered in our Hearth Gastherings reflections in March that I thought you might be interested in seeing where Melangell (Melangeth), Illtyd (Ilthid), David (Dewi) and Non (same in Welsh a

It was a short train ride from Durham to Berwick on Tweed where we had to wait until 2.45 pm for the tide to be low enough to cross with the very entertaining driver from Woody's Taxis, Andris or an anglicised Andrew from Latvia . He had an interesting slant on life in life in Latvia, still dominated by Russia after 30 years of so called freedom, his new life in north east England and his own spiritual experiences on Holy Island. Josie and I just loved our cottage, High Rigg